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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23003380">Showing Off</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyPanda3126/pseuds/NerdyPanda3126'>NerdyPanda3126</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Is a Little Shit, Friendship, Fun, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Marichat | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, One Shot, Teasing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:14:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,224</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23003380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyPanda3126/pseuds/NerdyPanda3126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chat Noir tries to show off for Marinette and it doesn't go as well as he hoped</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir &amp; Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>148</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Showing Off</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mermaidyarn/gifts">Mermaidyarn</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>On my work <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22918555">Lines</a>, mermaidyarn commented that Marinette would never let Chat leave and that her parents would ask him to help carry heavy things around the bakery. Which led me to believe he would be really helpful...until he got distracted and started showing off. Hope you like it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Thank you for walking me home, Chat Noir.” Marinette pauses in front of the bakery, taking her bookbag back from Chat. Their flour delivery is sitting outside the front door, ready to be carried in. Her dad has probably already started.</p><p>“De rien, ma princesse.” He dips into a low bow and Marinette giggles.</p><p>“You’d better be careful with that ‘ma princesse’ stuff around my dad.”</p><p>Chat’s face falls. “He’s not still mad about the Weredad incident, is he?”</p><p>“What? No, of course not. But you know how carried away he gets.”</p><p>Chat rubs the nape of his neck. “Still, I wish there were a way I could make it up to him.”</p><p>Marinette smiles. He can be sweet sometimes. “Do you want to come in? I’m sure we have some leftovers hanging around. You could compliment him on his baking and that would make his whole day.”</p><p>Chat brightens visibly; his cat ears perk up and his belt tail swishes around his calves. “I’d never turn down one of your dad’s pastries.”</p><p>“Follow me.”</p><p>Marinette walks through the front of the bakery, setting her bookbag on the counter and passing into the back. Her dad has his hands full when they walk in, carrying a bag of flour over his shoulder.</p><p>“Oh, Chat Noir, perfect timing! Could you help me out, please? There’s a few more bags of flour that got delivered today and they all need to be brought in.” He adjusts the bag on his shoulder, shrugging to distribute the weight better. “I should warn you, they’re a little heavy, but that shouldn’t be a problem at all for a superhero like you!”</p><p>“No, Dad, he’s not here for-”</p><p>“It’s all right, Marinette, I have some time.” Chat lays a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. “Besides, I’d like to help.” He winks at her before he turns to walk out the way they came.</p><p>Her dad sets the bag down on the counter in the back where they store ingredients. By the time he’s straightened up, Chat has returned with the other three bags of flour, all balanced on one shoulder.</p><p>“See, what’d I tell you? No trouble at all for a superhero.” Her dad’s voice booms and he nudges Marinette’s side, shooting her a knowing wink. Marinette hides her face behind her hands.</p><p>Chat glows under the praise, and he flips the top bag off with a deft movement, a slight roll of his shoulder, letting it tumble across his back and catching it easily with his free hand. Marinette can’t help but be impressed. The Miraculous does enhance physical attributes like agility and coordination, it was true, but she had never seen it in this application before. He’s holding a 25kg bag of flour up in the air like it’s a sheet of paper.</p><p>She tries to wipe her astonishment off her face before he catches her staring, but it’s too late for that. He smirks at her before curling his bicep, using the bag as a dumbbell.</p><p>“Oh, this? This is nothing. You should’ve seen when I took out all of Paris’ police force. Single-handedly, I might add.” He raises his eyebrows at Marinette, turning slightly so she gets a good view of his shoulders flexing. Marinette sneers at him playfully, but it’s enough to make his smirk slip just a notch.</p><p>He drops the bag purposefully, catching it with the toe of his boot and flipping it back up in the air to catch it again, like an oversized hacky-sack. He checks over to Marinette and she shrugs. She knows she’s supposed to be amazed, but it’s more fun to tease him.</p><p>He huffs before he flips the bag in the air one more time, aiming to catch it back on top of the other ones still on his shoulder. But at the last second, he glances down to check if she’s watching and the bag misses its target, landing directly behind him instead and splitting open to cover him in a cloud of flour.</p><p>For a second, he’s stunned. The flour hangs in the air like a fine mist, clinging to his hair and to the lines of his suit. Marinette presses her hands to her lips to try to contain her laughter. She really shouldn’t laugh. But he looks so thoroughly disgruntled. The laughter bubbles out around her fingers. She disguises it quickly as a cough.</p><p>Her dad is less discreet, and his booming laugh startles them both. He moves forward to take the other bags from Chat, setting them off to the side. “Well, that’s all right, good thing we have plenty to go around, right Marinette? I tell you, I can’t even count the number of times she’s knocked over an entire bag. Why one time, when she was three, she-”</p><p>“Dad,” she hisses at him.</p><p>“Well anyways, you’re in good company, that’s all I’ll say. I’ll go get you something to clean up with,” he says, clapping Chat on the back before he starts upstairs. A little cloud puffs up behind Chat’s shoulder and Marinette can’t contain herself anymore. It starts as a giggle at first, but when Chat starts to run his claws through his hair, shaking out more little clouds with every touch, she can’t seem to stop. It’s just so ridiculous. Tears spring into her eyes and she has to clutch at her stomach.</p><p>She doesn’t see Chat crouch to the ground to grab a handful of flour. She doesn’t see the mischievous glint in his eyes. And she most definitely doesn’t see it when he tosses a flour grenade at her, the little handful exploding when it hits her in the shoulder.</p><p>She manages to stop laughing long enough to look from her shoulder and back to him, standing with his hands stuck in his armpits like he did absolutely nothing wrong, and it doesn’t take her long to figure out what happened.</p><p>“Did you-?”</p><p>He grins, and his green eyes glowing out of the white film on his face just makes her start laughing again. She watches as he bends down again, pretending to be surreptitious while being totally obvious.</p><p>“Don’t you dare.”</p><p>His hand clenches around another small handful of flour. He stands slowly, keeping his eyes on her. His cat ears are pinned to his head, his tail flicking back and forth.</p><p>“I’m warning you,” she wags her finger at him, but her threat is tinged with a laugh and she can see the spark in his eyes even across the room. He flings it at her and she cringes away from the blast with a squeal. She starts towards him, intent on getting her own ammo, but he dips down and throws another handful at her before bolting out the door.</p><p>She follows him out just in time to see him vault up over their rooftop. She shakes her head at the open sky before she turns and sees the mess he’s left.</p><p>White boot prints lead back to the store, to the puddle of flour he had been standing in. The bag is still on the floor, sagging sadly, thankfully with some flour left inside. And when she looks down, her clothes are spattered with flour where his hits had landed.</p><p>She’s never inviting that cat back into the bakery again.</p>
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